Michael Gleb

Speaker 4: Okay. All right. All right. Nothing like being humbled before you get up to preaching than. Yeah. As that was back when they were a lot skinnier and I was the same bald and, you know, bald and still still pretty big. Hey, man. Praise the Lord. It's good to be here in the Lord's House tonight. And it I mean, it's good to have fun in the house of God, right? You know, it doesn't have to be all that stuff, right? We can watch a video and it'd be enjoyable. Well, my name is Michael. Glad. I appreciate so much the fact that I'm. You've invited me to come and be a part of this this kind of special thing that you're doing during the month of July. And I thank you, Pastor Gary, for inviting me. And we are really, really good friends and try to remain close through the years. And it was good to see Alisha and I never met Carter. Is that right, Carter? I asked Titus. I said, Titus, do you know who I am? No. I was there when you were born, you know. But he didn't know who I was. And Jackson was really small, too, when you left Fairfax. So praise the Lord. Well, thank you for inviting me again. Are we okay? Okay, good. All right. Well, praise the Lord. If you have your Bibles, turn to Acts Chapter 27 tonight, Acts 27. You know, when I get up to preach, if I preach out, it's always sort of a crapshoot when I come to somebody else's pulpit, you know, because I'm pretty short guy, as you can tell in the video, you know, and I've been in pulpits where it was like this big, you know, and I needed a stool to see over the podium. And matter of fact, the first time that I ever preached, I was I was just a ten year old boy. And I didn't know back then that God was going to call me to preach. But I was raised in church and and we always sat on the front row, me and my dad and my family. And it didn't matter what was going on. We were there on the front row, but I preach and I had to go get a stool from behind the flat, the plane over here and and put it in front of the podium to step up and and to preach. And I preach something. And I'm sure I murdered it and took it out of context. But I preach something that night. But anyway, so that was my first time preaching. But every time I come to somebody else's pulpit, I'm like, man, you know, I hope the podium isn't like, you know, just overpowering me, you know? And matter of fact, that one of the first things that I did when I went to my church is like, we got to get rid of this pulpit. It's way, way too big. But anyway, that that's that's me again, I would ask you because I'm sure if you're here on Tuesday night or a midweek service, you are here because you are some of the faithful members of Collinsville Baptist Tabernacle. You believe in the power of prayer, right? This is your midweek service, your your your prayer service. And so I would encourage you to write down Torrington Baptist Tabernacle. And if you some I know there are some prayer warriors in this church tonight. And I just want encourage you to pray for this little church there in Taunton, Wyoming. It's a it's a rural area. It's very heavily agricultural. We had the Wyoming's largest cattle auction there is right there in Torrington. There's there's a lot of ranches and a lot of farming in that area. And they actually call it the banana belt of Wyoming. Now, if you know anything about Wyoming, there's very there's very little humidity. But what humidity there is in Wyoming, it can be found in Goshen County because we're in a valley. It is one of the it's one of the lowest elevated places in all of the state. And I grew up in Casper and Cheyenne. I did some growing up in both those places. And I remember two things about it. I said there's no humidity and there's very little bugs. And I was I couldn't wait to get back to Wyoming for that reason. You know, besides the fact that the Lord was calling me, I came to the place where there's a ton of bugs and lot more humidity. And in Wyoming. So we're in this kind of valley here. And but God is blessing. And, you know, we need to pray for the rural towns of America. You know, sometimes we think, well, these are conservative places. And because we think that that they don't need Christ. Let me tell you something. Torrington, Wyoming, needs Jesus. And it is over churched and over, over, saturated with religion. And it needs Christ. Amen. It needs the gospel message. And so our little church there has been there for going on 32 years. And, you know, I hope and pray that God gives us another 32 years there. And we're just trying to reach our community and tell them that we love them and we love Jesus Christ. And so you pray for us. I know that. I know that you will. If you're if you're in the Book of Acts chapter number 27, we're going to first look at verse number 30. We're going to first look at verse some 30. Now, I think that if any, if you're familiar with the Book of Acts, you know, this one thing about Acts it or Acts 27, it is the Great Storm chapter. It's the Great Storm chapter. This is when Paul now is sailing into Rome, as God had promised. Austin. As a matter of fact, keep your place there and just turn back to APS chapter number 23 and look at verse number 11. And if you have a red letter addition to the Bible, you'll see that this is in red letter. And this is, of course, is Jesus speaking here? The Bible says in the night following the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as Thou has testified of me in Jerusalem, so much stout, so must now bear witness also at Rome. So this was something that the Lord told him. He said, Listen, Paul, he is being grilled by Festus. He is being grilled by Felix. He is eventually be grilled by Agrippa. And the two of those three have some sort of emotional connection to the gospel but don't trust Christ. Is there savior? And I believe it was Festus just out and out, dismissed the gospel and dismissed his preaching. But here we see that Jesus says, be of good cheer. This is what's going to happen. And I just love the idea. And wouldn't it be kind of awesome to be there with Paul when Jesus is kind of sidles up right next to him and says, Paul, it's going to be okay. You're going to testify of me in Rome, it's going to be okay. Be of good cheer. You know, sometimes we think Bible characters are oftentimes, you know, they they, you know, especially a man like Paul and the great faith that Paul had that he didn't succumb to discouragement or he didn't succumb to insecurities. And here Jesus is trying to cheer him up. He's trying to buck him up a little bit. But as far back as as chapter number 17, he's he he he's going into Jerusalem. He's got resources for the church there. Some say that he wanted to go there to maybe uplift some of those families, that he himself admitted that he wreaked havoc over of the church. And he was hailing men and women and imprisoning them and even killing the the deacon Stephen. And so he's going into Jerusalem, even his heaven, his friend Luke, his his his companion in the work here is trying to warn him not to go in. And he goes anyway. And of course, all this stuff takes place. But now in chapter number 27, he is on his way to Rome when a great storm begins to form. Now, if you're there in chapter 27, in verse number nine, the Bible says now, when much time was spent and when sailing was now dangerous because the fast was now already passed, Paul admonished them and said Under them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with much hurt or with her and much damage not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. Now, what was Paul during this time? Well, Paul was just a prisoner. He was just a group of prisoners. He was a faceless prisoner that the centurion had to get to Rome. He wasn't anybody that was to be listened to. And then there was also an owner and a proprietor of the ship that had precious cargo that was to be sold. And there was this was a great business decision here. A centurion that says, no, no, no, we've got to get these prisoners to Rome. And somebody said, okay, Paul, thank you for your input. PRISONER Now go back over there. Paul had been around some storms. Had he not, Paul had had experienced some things. It wasn't just something that he just said. No, no, no. He perceived. And of course, it was true. This was a great storm. But they didn't listen to Paul and look down on verse number 21. And of course, the storm raged in verse number 21 and says this. But after a long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, you should have hearkened then to me. I told you right and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer. And I think when I read that passage, I think back when God when when Jesus told Paul be of good cheer, for there shall no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship. So we see I like also in verse number 21, but after a long abstinence Paul, I believe that Paul was praying after this long abstinence, he's he's away. I'm sure he's getting alone with God. This storm is great. And I like Paul, like the insecurities that we all have. Paul himself struggled and he was praying, said, Lord, what's going on here? All our lives are at stake here. You told me I was going to make it to Rome. But this is this is a difficult thing. And then when he came forward, he said there was a promise here. There shall be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship. Now we come to and there's other things in that passage of scripture, do you ever get an opportunity to really study out, especially the whole chapter, but verses nine through 26 and just really dig in? It's a blessing to see. But now we get to verse number 30 and before we get to verse number 30, I'm going to ask a question how many understand that we're living in a very incendiary world? We're living in a very volatile time and we believe that. Amen. Let's get a little action here. All right. We believe that we're living in a very volatile time. People are angry. Right. Things quickly sent us us into an angry mode. Mad things quickly can turn from from peaceful to violent really fast. I mean, I understand it's not hard to see that social media has connected us ways that in a lot of ways are great, but it's also connected us in ways that are that are revealing a lot of things. And we're just living in that in that world right now. It's a very incendiary. So if you think about the world itself, we can consider that to be a stormy world. And ahead we can consider that to be a stormy world. We don't know when the next riot may take place. We don't know when the next pandemic will hit. We don't know if if politicians are lying to us or not. We don't know if people in the pulpit are lying to us or not. Sometimes we just live in that world and it's a storm that rages all around us. But look at verse summer 30. And as the shit men were about to flee out of the ship. When they had let down the boat into the sea under color, as though they would have cast anchors out of the fourth ship. Verse 31, Paul said to the centurion, into the soldiers. Except these are died in the ship. He cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off. While the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take me, saying, This day is the 14th day that you have tarried and continued fasting haven't taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some me for this is for your health, for there shall not and hair fall from the head of any of you. Now the great promise they made. But some are 35, and when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer? And they also took some meat. Verse 37 and we're all and we were all excuse me were in all in the ship 203 score and 16 souls. Lord, I pray that you'll bless us tonight, Lord, as we look into your word. Help us to understand, Lord, that we're living in a very volatile time, and how we react to things is important. How we sanctify you, Lord, is important. How we set you apart. Lord is in your place, in our hearts is so very, very vitally important. I pray that you'll help us all as we're speaking to this mid-week crowd here, this one that shows a dependency upon you through prayer and and shows the willingness to be here on an even on a summer, summer night and on Tuesday night. Lord, to come here this guest. Speaker Lord, I pray that you'll help us to understand that oftentimes it's it's these types of people, LORD, that are the mature believers and how they handle situations is so vitally important in Jesus precious name. Amen. There was a statement before, and I don't know if you've heard this, but the statement goes like this Spiritual people make big problems, small, whereas carnal people make small problems big. Amy I ever heard that before. Spiritual people make big problems. Small and carnal people make small problems big. You ever heard the expression making a mountain out of a molehill? I mean, ever heard that expression we know. How about don't we don't cry over spilled milk. And that's another one along those lines as well. Well, I want you to notice there's a storm raging, but in the middle of this storm, a problem arises. It's not enough that they're dealing with just a storm. Here's a problem that arises again in verse number 30, we see and as the shipment, we're about to flee out of the ship when they had let down the boat into the sea under color, as though they would have cast anchors out of the fourth ship. So here's the ship, man. I don't know if you know anything about the shipment, but these particular shipment were the ones that captained the boat. They drove the boat. I guess you can use the word. They sailed the boat. I don't know what the right expression is, but they're the ones in control of the boat. You understand where I'm coming from? These guys under Color of Night, they decided to go ahead and drop anchor or pretend that they were going to drop anchor. And instead of doing that, they were going to let down the boats so they could escape. They were bailing. They were bailing. I mean, have ever had somebody bail on you for any particular reason? Yeah. That's always nice, isn't it? Leaving you in the lurch, Pastor. You know anything about that? No, not at all. Right. And we we understand what that's about on the job. You know what? That's about somebody that decides to go away and not do their work. And and, of course, that's relied on other people. But this is a very dangerous situation here. This isn't just the fact that that they wanted to bail out of a difficult situation. I think if we put ourselves in their shoes, we would all probably have that that that natural instinct to say, I just want to get away from this. This is crazy. I just want I just want some peace and I want some calm. But I want you to notice this. And the Bible isn't specific, but I want you to think with me. Okay? Use your imagination a little bit and look at verse summer 31. That's when Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Accept these, abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Now, here's the scenario again. Paul doesn't address the shipment. The somehow word gets to Paul that they're ready to bail. Somehow word gets to Paul that they're ready to leave, and they're doing it under the color of night. And by the way, I always think about these things when it comes to the work of God. There's a lot of people that will leave a church like this in a church like ours, and they'll make up some excuse. But the real reason as to why they are bailing isn't revealed. Right. Pastor, you've heard of people say, well, I'm just not getting fed over there. Well, I didn't like how somebody treated my children over there. Right. And these are all just kind of things that are sort of almost deceptive reasons for them to have the opportunity to bail. Amen. Right. It's a good reminder to all of us tonight. Be honest with people. Just be honest. Don't blame something else as to the reason why you're struggling. Just be honest with your pastor. Be honest with each other. Be honest with your wife. Be honest with your husband. Don't make up reasons. It kills me when people say I'm just not getting fed and I'm-I'm just stupid. I just say, Well, chew and swallow. I don't know what else to tell you. You know, I tell our people at our church, I say, Folks, it doesn't matter who's behind the pulpit. If they open up the word of God, it's your responsibility to listen. There's all kinds of different styles of preaching. There's all kinds. I was telling Brother Gary about a a man that came right when I was really praying about moving to Torrington from there in Fairfax. And I was praying about going there and preaching. And there was a missionary there. And I got to be honest with you, he was pretty boring. But he said one thing and that message that stuck with me and I knew my calling was to go to Torrington because of one thing that he said. I don't remember what it was, but I'm there and just get. But, hey, we have a responsibility to listen. Amen. You know, I mean, we can go to everything. We go to ballgames, we can go to movies and everything. But we passed a preacher to preach for 30 minutes, and, well, we can't walk away remembering anything. Hey, it's your responsibility to listen. But anyway, let's move back to the point here. So we see Paul says to them, he says, Listen, he doesn't tell the shit, man, but he looks at the centurion. And the soldiers say, Listen, if these guys bail, all of us are going to die. Except these died in the ship. Yea, the centurions and soldiers. He cannot be saved. These guys were putting the entirety of the ship in peril by their selfish desire to bail. Now, I don't love to fly how they are with me. I love to fly the moment. A little bit of turbulence. Palms get sweaty. I start to get angry and things just start to go haywire in my mind, you know? But I'm getting better at it. But can you imagine a pilot once a little bit of turbulence hits? I'll get up in the morning. I'll catch the earliest known flight to man ever in a day. I got to fly out of here at 515 in the morning. I literally land in Denver at 6:00. That's when I land. That's an early flight. Okay. But can you imagine if we're flying and all sudden there's a little bit of a turbulence and the pilot says, I'm ejecting out of here, man. I got my parachute and I'm out of here. And he just bails. I mean, that would be a problem. What would be the problem? Well, you're putting the entirety of the flight into jeopardy. You're putting all those people in jeopardy. Do you think people on that plane would have a problem with that? I think so. Let me give you a couple of scenarios or a couple of stories. I mean, I've never heard of a man by the name of Francesco Schettino. All right. How many I've ever heard of? The Costa Concordia? Okay. We got one. All right. Costa Concordia. Okay. Well, I don't know either one of those. Okay. Francesco Schettino was a was a captain of the Costa Concordia. This was a an Italian luxury liner back in 2012. And he was sailing on to some southern coast, some southern island of Italy. And he decided to do a sail by. Now, what I read about a sail by was just simple. He was sailing close to the coast and he'd flip on the lights and do some sounds to the to the resort luxury area there, just to say hi to the guests. He had done this many times. Well, on this particular day, he did it. And he got a little too close to the knot, a little too close. He was way too close to the coastline, hit rocks and capsized, I believe, starboard in the water. Now, if you take out your phone and you Google it, please don't. But if you took out your phone and you go get it, you would see the Costa Concordia laying starboard side. And I think it's the Mediterranean animal for sure. But he's there and you can see it. The pictures are online now. Okay. We can chalk this up to human error. We can chalk that up to him. He got too close. It's devastating. But the as the water begins to fill in, there, later comes comes to light that 32 people lost their lives. And again, you can say, well, tragic as that may be. Human error. Most of the plane crashes that have taken place are due to human error. We can say as tragic as that may be. But here's the one devastating thing. Here's the one thing that Francesco Schettino did that was wrong. He bailed when there were still people on the ship. Now, maritime law forbids a captain of the ship to leave a ship in any any particular instance like that when there are people still on. And this man got off, saved himself. And again, naturally speaking, we may well, we may do that, too, but he wasn't supposed to do that. He's still, at this point in time, serving 16 years for manslaughter because of his actions that day in 2000, I think it was 2013, he was voted as the most hated man in all of Italy. Think about that. You can say what you want to. But that was was it. He was voted as the most hated. Hey, people have a problem. There was a problem caused by this man's selfishness. Well, let me give you another story. I never heard of Chelsea Sullenberger. A little bit more familiar. Chelsea Sullenberger, US Airways flight almost three years to the day before leaving LaGuardia. And a bird strike hits his engines. Both engines are taken out and he lands in the Hudson River. You can take out your phone and you can look at that one as well. Please don't. You can look at that one. And there he is. Here's this plane in the middle of the Hudson River. Both of these situations, pretty interesting sights to see when you're looking at it through the picture. But here's the difference, Chelsea, sell or not, leave the ship. Matter of fact, as the waters began to rise and come into the fuselage, the waters began to fill up that fuselage. Chelsea Sullenberger is walking up and down the aisles and in between seats. So that airplane making sure there was no small child or woman or anybody that may have been knocked out by the landing. He would they were not. He walked up and down that that those aisles twice and finally said, okay, it's time to go while the water is filling in the fuselage. Chelsea Sullenberger is a hero to most people in the United States of America. Here's what I'm trying to tell you today. There is in this particular scenario, there is a problem created by selfishness. Now we all are guilty of selfishness and we have all know people that have created problems because of their selfishness. By the way, the Bible tells us to, only by pride, come into contention. There's only one reason. It's because of pride. It's because of self-centeredness. It's because of. Of looking to self. Saving ourselves. And this is another instance I can imagine. Although the Bible is not clear, I can imagine those 276 minus those. Shipman had a real issue with these men wanting to bail. You'll see that. All right. Let's look at the second thing tonight. It wasn't just a problem created by selfishness, but in this story as well, I want you to notice, Paul. I want you to notice Paul here. And this is a real point of the issue. We've got an incendiary world right at the touch of a of a button. We can send Twitter and Facebook and and the church that follows you and the members of the church. We can give one vague post and send everybody in an uproar. Well, what do you mean by that? But watch Paul tonight, Paul in verse number 33, he says, And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the 14th day that she had tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some me for this is for your health for there shall not in hair fall from the head of any one of you. I wish I had to claim that promise a long time ago. The hair falling from the head. I, I really do. I wish my eyes seen that. Say, Lord, I'm claiming this promise. I don't want any hair to fall away. It's too late. It's going. I don't have a large forehead. I have the receding hairline. That's what it is. All right, so we see a problem created by selfishness. But I want you to notice a problem calmed by sustenance, a problem calmed by sustenance. Paul says Lipton, I mean, listen, this is there's there's certain feelings about this entire thing. There are certain things. I mean, 276 on board. I mean we the storms raging and you guys want to bail putting the entire ship in peril. And Paul from the Holy Spirit of God says, wait a minute, let's take some meat. Let's sit down and eat. You're hungry. It's for your health. Let me give you a couple of illustrations here that we find in the word of God. Turn one book over to John. Chapter number 21. John, chapter 21. Most of you know the story of Peter. Peter is one of my favorite Bible characters. Be honest with you. Why? Because we're a lot like Peter. We're a lot like him. All right. So after Peter denies Christ, and then we see Peter and and Jesus after he's been resurrected and he's. He's in that resurrected state, but he's walking around and he's greeting those disciples. Chapter number 21, the last chapter of John, they're in verse number 11. Bible, says Simon. Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes and hundred and 50 and three and four all. There were so many. Yet was not the net broken? Jesus. Say a thunder. Then this is the first words that He says to Peter. He mentions to Peter come and dine. Come and dine. Not Peter. In my greatest hour of need, you were incredibly self-centered. When everybody was after me. And they look to crucify me. You were creative, incredibly self-centered. I mean, you went so far as to warm your hands by the fire. You made every thing possible. You even spoke like you wanted to make sure that you distanced yourself so far away from me. You didn't scold him. What did you do? He said, Come and die. I know about you. But sometimes when people are upset at the church, you know, sometimes that happens. We have a great church. We have great people there. But sometimes people are upset and full of gumption, you know. They come right into the church office right before you getting ready to preach. Pastor. We got to talk. Well, that's great. That's perfect. That's exactly what I wanted to hear before I got up to preach. Is that you needed something is all right. I understand. So are you okay? And you try to oblige him. But, Mother, I mean, they're locked and loaded and ready for bear. I mean, they're ready to tell you exactly how it is. And by the way, let me just help you with something. When a pastor hears the term, hears those words, we got to talk. It sends shivers up and down our body. Okay, I'm just going to help you out with something here. It it absolutely frightens us. You know why? Because, a, we're we're we're dealing with our own insecurities, okay? We're dealing with our own insecurities. And then we know that this is going to have long lasting effects. So just be honest. I'm just I'm I'm just trying to be honest with you, okay? I'm saying this for your preacher sake, okay? When people do that. But sometimes I have people say, Hey, Pastor, would you like to get lunch this next week? Oh, that's much more. That's better. I mean, still in the back of my mind, it's like, okay, what do they want to talk about? But you know what? We're eating lunch. Where, you know, can I say breaking bread? It should be a calm conversation. Why? Because there's food involved. Hey, Matt. How much can you yell when there's food involved? Right. We all went out to eat this pie today, and we were talking up a storm. As soon as the food came, it was quiet for about 3 minutes. Blissfully quiet as we sink our teeth into our sandwiches or whatever we was eating. I'm just saying here today, Paul says, listen, come and eat. Let me give you one more passage of scripture that will help us. I looked at First Kings chapter number 19. You probably know exactly where we're going first Kings 19. Man by the name of Elijah. Elijah just had some great spiritual victory here. Couple of chapters before. He's feeding a widow and her son, and God is so God supplied the need and provide in a forever in perpetuity. And then we sit the next chapter. We see the prophets of Babel being destroyed and Elijah calling Fire down from heaven. I mean, that's that's pretty phenomenal. But then the next chapter, he finds out Jezebel is after him. And he's right. I think it's just. But I may be wrong about that. I'm sorry. But he's find out some lies that kill him. Boy, he gets discouraged. Look at our summer four of Chapter 19 that he himself when a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die and said, it is enough now, oh Lord, take away my life, for I'm not better than my father's now. Elijah is getting his his eyes on himself. There's no doubt about it. But he's tired. Verse number five. And as he has he lay and slept under a juniper tree. Behold. Then an angel touched him and set into him. Arise and eat. And he looked and behold. There was a cake baking on the coals and a cruise of water at his head. And he did eat and drink and laid him down again. And the angel, the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said, arise and eat because the journey is too great for the. And he arose and did eat and drink. And when in the strength of that meat, 40 days and 40 nights and a horror of the amount of God. You see, even in Elijah's life, he just needed to be supplied by. By God. He just needed to have his sustenance come from God. Amen. And he said, Listen, I know you're tired and I know you're struggling. Let's take some food and let's eat. So how's this apply to you? Well, when we come into this place, when we come into the house of there's a world beyond these doors, there's an incendiary, incendiary storm that's brewing beyond these doors. This is the time that we come together and we eat. And there's a calmness. I've seen a lot of pastors that knew how to. Gas, a lot of people up. I mean, we can talk about any subject you want. I can gas everybody up here. We can get everybody upset today. We can we can talk about COVID. We can talk about the culture. We can talk about the shutdowns. We can talk about the pandemic. We can talk about the White House. We can talk about anything, can't we? I can get you guys gassed up and you can get me gassed up and we can go on forever and ever. But really, what does that accomplish? It doesn't accomplish much, does it? When we come together here, this is a time for us to sit together and to eat. And if you're a father in the home, the spiritual leader in your home, it's the same. If you're on the job and you're the only one that's a Christian, it's the same for you. It's the same for a pastor. I told a group of pastors, I said, You are the primary peacemakers in your church, I believe I just again, I'm taking a little bit of liberty here and thinking this through, but I can almost imagine saying, okay, let's, let's, let's eat. And I get a shipment and said, why don't you guys come and sit next to me? I can see Paul doing that. I don't think that that was Paul's nature in all of his earthly and all of his ministry. I don't think that was Paul's nature. I think Paul had to learn those things. Paul had real difficulties with some of those men that he worked with and that he ministered with. But I'm sure he he I just think that he came and said, come over here and sit down and and sit next to me. And, boy, it just sent a calm through that place, that ship. Let me tell you something. They may not been listening to Paul before, but they're listening to him now. Amen. The Bible tells us that blessed blessed are the peacemakers. So. Well, that's not in my nature to be a peacemaker. It's not my nature to be calm. I'm a pretty intense guy. Well, so am I. But we're still called to make peace. Amen. So we see a problem calmed by sustenance. But look at verse number 35. We see a problem now canceled by sanctification. Bible says, and when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer? And they also took some meat. You see a problem canceled by same case is a pastor. How in the world do you know for sure this was a problem canceled by sanctification? Well, look at verse summer 36. I just take it literally. And were they all of good cheer? Now I know we can feel too emotions at once, but usually when I'm of good cheer, I'm not angry. I mean, is that common sense or what here? I mean, when I'm of good cheer, there's very little anxiety. Hey, man, come on, now. Problem canceled by what? Sanctification. And he gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. You know, too many times we try to solve problems in our own spirit and through our own ability. We try that way too much. You may be a father here today, and I have no idea what to do about my son or my daughter. And you're trying to fix a situation and you're trying to bring joy to the home where there's a joyousness in the home and you're trying to almost force a smile on your kid's face. But tell you something, that's not the way this works. Sometimes I go into my church and I love those people, but sometimes it's kind of dead, you know? And everybody's just kind of looking at me. Some of you are looking at me the same way there is column know what talking about. I, you know, and I'm like, Hey, let's put a smile on our face. And, you know, I try to use those human ways of trying to prod people to have joy of the Lord. But the fact of the matter is, is this the best way that you and I can is by sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts sanctification setting. That's all that means is setting him. He's got a special place in our hearts. And Paul just looked and he gave things unto the Lord. And the Bible says, then they were all of good cheer. Amen. The anxiety is gone. By the way. The rest of this story is not fixed. They're going to lose the ship. Their only protection. They're going to lose it. But in this moment in time, there is there are all of good cheer. You see, the problem wasn't the storm. The problem was the anger. The problem was the fear. The problem was these things. Let me tell you something. There is certainties in life, and one certainty is this you're going to go through a storm. You can't run from it. Some of you are coming out of it. Some of you are about to go into it. Some of you are right smack dab in the middle of it. It's going to happen. You're going to have problems. You're going to have struggles. You're going to have storms in the home. You're going to have storms in church. You're going to have storms on the job. You've got some of you are going to experience internal storms. It's going to be bubbling over. It's going to be boiling over in here. And nobody else knows about. And you can't figure out why am I here to tell you this? Sanctify the Lord God in your heart. Set him high and holy lifted up. I'm not saying that that's going to be the end of it. I'm not telling you here tonight that that's going to. You just say, praise the Lord, and it all goes away. But I'm gonna tell you something. If you place God on the throne of your heart, he's going to help you through the storm, for sure. Our response. Personal response to emotions is found in Philippians chapter four and verse number six. The Bible says, be careful for nothing. And before I read that verse, you know, we're like any church, our little church, little isolated church on the what I call the east coast of Wyoming. We're literally six miles away from the Nebraska border. By the way, those Wyoming people love it. When I say we're on the east coast of Wyoming. I call them a bunch of East Coast. They just they know they hate that. I always remind them. I said you guys were just settled by a bunch of Yankees, literally. Settlers from Torrington, Connecticut, came and settled. Torrington, Wyoming. They love when I remind them of that, but I tell them, you know, we're just a little church over there and we got our problems, too. The other night, you know, we deal with financial things. I ended that little meeting that we had. No big deal. Lords Goddess. I ended that little meeting with this verse. I said, Now let's pray in the spirit of Philippians four, six. Be careful for nothing. Amen. Don't be full of care with a walking around, full of care. Some of you carry massive burdens because you choose to. Be careful for nothing. But in everything. How? By prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your request be made known unto God. As we had that little meeting, I said, Let's think this. God has provided for us every step along the way. He's going to continue to provide. Let's be thankful. But let's take our requests before the Lord and say, God, you're the one that has to provide. You're the one that has to provide. You know, when I was faced with a little of a situation a couple of weeks ago, it made me a little nervous. I got the knot in my stomach right here. It just got me started boiling over and I'm like, Oh, my goodness, what are we going to do? And my mind starts going, Wait, I do this, I can do this. I can do this as if it's up to me. As if it's up to me. And I just remember that I had a faithful man of God sitting there with my office. He said, Pastor. And he had seen it all. He said, It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. And this verse popped into my mind. Just be careful for nothing with Thanksgiving. God had provided along the way. First, Peter 315 says what but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Don't try to lean on to your own understanding to solve the problems that you have at home. Don't try to lean on your own understanding as far as the church goes as well. I don't know about this issue. Just sanctify the Lord God in your heart. I'm going to be honest with you again. As I said before, Paul, they don't want to listen to him before. He was a prisoner. You go over there, Paul. Well, thank you, buddy. We got to get you to Rome. No big deal. You go over there. Let me tell you something. They may not listen to him then, but he has the attention now, the full attention of that entire boat. He is truly in charge now. Is a movie not too long ago they said on the captain, now, Paul had that kind of. Why not? Because he forced himself. Not because he forced the issue. Because he gave things to the Lord, because he's sanctified the Lord God in his heart. And now let me tell you something. They're listening to Paul now. They're listening to Paul. Let me give you one last thing, and we're going to be done. We see a problem caused by selfishness. We see a problem calmed by sustenance, and we see a problem canceled by sanctification. But notice the promise kept by the Savior, verse number 37, very clear. And we were in all in the ship 203 score 16 souls. Now, there's an interesting word here, and it's interesting. It's a two letter word. And the word is we you see the word we there as the interesting who's writer of the Book of Acts. Well, it's Luke. You really honestly, I preach through the Book of Acts. It took me two and a half years to preach to the book of acts like to sit in that series. You know, by the end of it, I was like, I turn to Book of Acts. Oh, goodness gracious, acts again as as good. Anyway, you wouldn't even know that. I mean, as I traveled through it, I forgot sometimes that Luke was the writer. You know, in the first two verses of the of the book that he's the writer, the first two verses. And then along the way, there's little pronouns that are used, and here is the same as well. If you go back in the chapter, we see in verse number 20, look at verse summer 20. This is interesting. This is at the I mean, at the height of the storm and when neither sun nor stars and many days appeared and no small tempest lay on us. Right. Here's Luke again, interjecting himself here into this book. All hope that we. Should be saved was then taken away. Luke's just interjecting him with these pronouns. All hope this is a man of God in his own right. And Luke was sitting there going, All hope was gone and all hope that we had was taken away. Lucas testified The fact that even he himself, even he himself, was worried. Now, why do I bring that up? Because the Book of Acts literally was on this boat. And God has promised to preserve his word for us. Amen. The Book of Acts is on there. Not only was the Book of Acts on this boat, but so was other epistles that Paul was about to write in that a blessing to now? That's a blessing to know when God had laid it on Paul's heart that all would be saved and not a loss of the hair on the head was going to be it was going to happen. I mean, he promised that boy Paul just had a he just had the calmness litany and God's word was going to continue. And sometimes we get to a point when that storm is raging and then there's problems and it seems like there's problems all around us. And you're dealing with problems on multiple fronts. I think America used to be able to fight wars on multiple fronts. I'm not sure about that today. You remember that? I remember in the the the the the in 2003, some of the administration of the Bush Bush administration, they came out and said, listen, they warned our enemies we can fight wars on multiple fronts. But do you ever feel like it's like everywhere you turn, there's a problem here. There's a problem there. There's a problem in our family. And it's just it's overwhelming at some times. You got to look to the promises of God. Yeah. Look to the promises of God. You know, when I think about the problems that are going on in our church or maybe in those problems, and they seem bigger than they actually are. Bible says. Thou Art, Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The problems that I think is going to sink it. I mean, this church is going to be no more. There's no money in the bank. There's there's a there's a there's a group of people that are getting together, and they're they're they're angry at me, and they're going to run me out of town. I mean, all these insecurities come and I'm like, Now, this is the Lord's work. This is the promise. Listen, folks, he's promised to provide for you. You know that. He's promised never to leave the nor forsake the amen. You have a constant companion in life, folks. You have a constant companion. And you can go through any storm, any time, anywhere with that one companion and you can get through it. Amen. You can get through it strengthened on the other side. What a blessing to think and consider that God promises us. And he promised him here. By the way, if you look at verse number 37, Bible says 203, score 16 souls. That's very specific. That's 276. Didn't rounded up. He didn't round down he didn't say over roughly 300 about to 59. No, 276 souls that began on that voyage were still there and still alive. And you look on the further in the chapter, again, that boat's going to be all torn to pieces and they're going to land there and they're going to they're going to land there on that island. And that boat's going to be all torn to pieces. And all of those souls are still going to be alive. Amen. May I ask you a question? How is it that you handle situations? How is it that you handle problems? Do you carry with you, the Lord, into them? You may be the very lights, you may be the calming presence on your job tomorrow when you go in. You may be that very calming presence. You may be the one that people kind of gravitate to. To to handle those situations because you handle it's not like you're giving. It's not like you're smarter than everybody. Just handle them with grace. Are you the one that gaslights everything? Yeah. It's people like that in churches. A lot of churches, they just gaslight everything. Every problem is bigger than what it really is. Hey, be that Christian that brings a calm presence. Not because it's your demeanor, but because of the spirit of God. We live in an incendiary world. Don't make the small problems bigger than what they are. Carry with you the Holy Spirit of God. Walk in him. And father. Mother. Pastor. Staff, Sunday school teacher. Boy, are you just going to start? It's not. You're not pasting over problems. You're just not making them bigger than what they really are. Why? Because of the spirit of God. And I tell you something. That's where churches began to be really effective. Amen. That's. We get somebodys Christian walk with God in their Christian life to be really effective. And people start to see that, and they want what you have. Lord, we love you. We thank you for this night that you've this time that you've given us. Thank you for this passage of Scripture. And the example that is that is in this book, Lord, help us to understand, Lord, we already live in very troubling times. We live in very troubling times. Help us to show the loving kindness of our father. Help us to show the long suffering and the grace and the mercy, but also the calm, steady presence that you desire for us all in Jesus precious name in.

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